Terry Frei

Frei: Colorado Freedom Memorial to include elder Monfort

On Jan. 29, 1944, Capt. Lee Van Syckle's B-17 "Flying Fortress" crew, based in Deenethorpe, England, was one of more than 800 U.S. bombers in a massive daylight raid on Frankfurt. Shortly after Van Syckle's plane dropped its bombs and turned away, a group of Messerschmitt fighters attacked the B-17 and others in the lower box of the American wing.

A young navigator from a prominent Colorado family was among the 10-man crew on the B-17.

He was 2nd Lt. Richard Lee Monfort.

Next Sunday, during Memorial Day weekend, Denver radio host and veterans advocate Rick Crandall of KEZW's "Breakfast Club" will watch his dream become reality, after years of fundraising. At 2 p.m., the Colorado Freedom Memorial will be dedicated in Aurora. The memorial honors nearly 6,000 Coloradans killed or missing in action while serving their country.

Here, that navigator — the uncle of Rockies owners Richard Lee "Dick" Monfort, whose name is another tribute, and Charlie Monfort — represents them all.

Richard Monfort and his younger brother, Kenneth, were sons of Greeley cattle feeder Warren Monfort. Before the U.S. entered World War II, the brothers showed champion steers at the State Fair and the National Western Stock Show.

Richard was a junior at Colorado A&M in Fort Collins when he enlisted in the Army in December 1942. During training, he married Viola Swanson of Greeley. Ultimately, he was deployed to England with the 8th Air Force's 401st Bomb Group, 615th Squadron.

The mission to Frankfurt was his crew's third.

The official "Missing Air Crew Report," opened after the mission and supplemented over the next 18 months, was declassified in 1973. Of course, it is not pretty. The Messerschmitts, equipped with machine guns and cannons firing 20mm rockets, hit three B-17s. A rocket struck Monfort's plane in the wing tanks, which caught fire, and it also was hit in the tail. Tail gunner Charles Duke cried out, "I'm hit!" And then, "I'm done for!"

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In the nose, bombardier Stanley Groski was firing the chin turret gun when the plane was hit, and the impact knocked him back into Monfort. Amid the chaos, the bailout order came. Groski later said he believed Monfort was wounded before they jumped. Also, as they left the front of the plane, the Messerschmitts still were firing on the B-17.

After others in the crew jumped from their areas of the plane, ball turret gunner Donald Lamb was horrified to see radio operator Joseph Glonek speed past him on the way down. The lines of Glonek's chute were deployed, but the canopy was unopened. Duke, the tail gunner, likely still was in the plane when it exploded during its free fall.

On the ground, seven crew members were captured. The Germans took co-pilot Mitchell Woods to a village and told him that two dead members of the crew had landed there. He was shown their escape kits and watches, and a navigator's map. Woods concluded the dead Americans were Glonek and Monfort. The Germans refused to let him see the bodies.

The co-pilot also was told that the chute of one American, which he assumed was Glonek, hadn't opened enough to save him, if he was alive when he reached the ground; and that the chute of the other American, presumably Monfort, was unopened. It seems likely that Monfort was hit by German fire before and after he left the plane.

Richard Lee Monfort was 21 years old. His brother, Kenneth, was 14. Kenneth, who died in 2001, had four children, including Dick, born in 1954, and Charlie, born in 1959.

When Dick was young, his father told him of his namesake.

"They sat down and told me that he had died in the war, and that he was going to take over the (family) company, so that brought my father into it," Dick said Sunday. "It was quite humbling to know I had been named after him. He was somebody my dad looked up to with such a high regard, and that meant a lot to me. I wish I would have known him. From all that I've heard, he was a special guy."

The Colorado Freedom Memorial will be additional evidence of our gratitude to Richard Lee Monfort ... and so many others.

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